The Wind And The Sun [Part 2]

[EliseFell]

Wind and Sun walked side by side down the winding forest road. None of the travelers that they passed could see the two avatars of nature, but if they could they would have seen a pair of young women. Sun was blonde, bright eyed, and curvy. She had a bounce in her step and a smile on her face. Wind was tall and willowy, her long hair a shocking white color and her pale skin scarcely any darker. Her eyes were a chilling blue and her expression was somber.

None could hear them either, but if they could they would have heard the following argument taking place.

"I drive ships across the sea," Wind stated. Her voice was calm, but there was an underlying tension. "I can stir up tornadoes or summon waves that level entire cities. I am clearly the strongest."

"Everything that lives and grows does so at my pleasure," Sun said lightly. "And if you wish to claim the waves - I'm sure Ocean would disagree with you, but nevermind that - I will remind you that the wind relies on me as well. Without the temperature differences I cause, you would not exist." She smiled, and added in a teasing voice, "Wouldn't that make all of your victories my own?"

Wind scowled. "No. Just because you stick your nose into everything doesn't make you strong. This is about what you can do directly."

Sun only grinned wider, which only made Wind scowl more. Sun seemed to think of Wind as her grumpy friend, while Wind thought of Sun as an overly cheerful pest that was impossible to get rid of. She'd resigned herself to having the other girl in her life, and - on the days Wind was honest with herself - there was a comfort in having at least one person she couldn't drive away with her frigid attitude

Today was not one of those days. Sun's warm smile and know-it-all, above-it-all attitude was getting on Wind's nerves. She blew a cold huff of air out of her nose. "You're all talk. We settle this with a contest."

"A contest?" Sun asked. Her tone was skeptical but curious. "I don't know."

"You can pick," Wind offered. "I don't care what it is. Anything you can do, I can do better. I'll let you choose the forfeit too."

Sun was quiet for a long while as she considered Wind's challenge. Sun always liked to think things through before doing them, but it was all Wind could do to hold her tongue while she waited. The occasional human passed to either side of the girls, unconsciously avoiding them as they walked.

"Very well," Sun agreed. Wind allowed herself a tiny smile. "If I win, I get to turn you corporeal until the next sunrise. If you win, you can do the same to me."

"Deal," Wind agreed. Slumming it with the humans for a few hours seemed like fair stakes to her. "And the challenge?"

Sun smiled and gestured towards one of the nearby travelers walking up the road. Wind recognized her as a girl from a nearby village. "The challenge is this: the first one to strip her of all of her clothes wins."

[EliseFell]

Wind was momentarily shocked. She had offered to let Sun pick the challenge because she knew the other avatar was fair and kind, thus she would never pick a challenge biased in her favor. And in that respect, the challenge was what Wind had expected - perhaps even biased towards Wind. It didn't seem terribly kind to the girl in question, however.

Wind quickly got over it. Stripping an innocent village girl wasn't kind, but nobody had ever accused Wind of being such a thing. She rubbed her hands together. "Let's get to it, then."

"What's the rush?" Sun asked cheerfully. "This is just a competition between friends. Let's follow her for a little while. It will give you time to think up a strategy."

The corner of Wind's mouth turned upwards in a slight smirk. This was a contest of strength, not strategy. She'd just blast the girl with a gale strong enough to pluck the clothes off of her like feathers off a chicken. She decided to humor Sun, however. "Sure, why not?"

The pair of avatars easily caught up to the girl and fell into step on either side of her. She was humming a barely audible tune below her breath and swinging a wicker basket back and forth, blissfully unaware of her impending fate. Wind scanned her quarry from head to toe with a predatory eye.

Small of stature, brown of hair, freckled of skin. White dress, brown jacket, and a red scarf. Cute, in a plain sort of human way. Brown leather boots that came up to her mid-calf. Wind reminded herself that Sun had said all of her clothes - that meant her socks and underclothes would need to go too. That would-

"She smells like cinnamon," Sun exclaimed suddenly, interrupting Wind's train of thought. The avatar was leaning over the village girl's shoulder and sniffing her hair. "Wind, come on, smell her."

"What?" Wind asked, bewildered. "No. Why would I care what she spice smells like? The challenge is to strip her, not eat her."

"It makes sense," Sun continued as if Wind hadn't spoken. "She's a baker's daughter, after all. May Baker."

The pair followed along as May veered off of the main path and began walking down a smaller, less traveled path. Sun clapped her hands. "She must be going blueberry picking!"

"I don't need to hear her life story," Wind said crossly. "If you're not going to talk about the contest, shut up."

Sun obligingly fell silent as the three of them traveled through the forest. May traipsed along noisily, while Sun and Wind seemed almost to glide, brush and detritus sliding out of their path as they moved. Wind almost felt sorry for May - even something as simple as locomotion seemed to take humans so much effort.

They soon emerged into a clearing peppered with bushes. Blueberry bushes. Sun was gracious enough not to say anything, but Wind could feel her grinning even though she adamantly refused to look in her direction. May began to wander through the field, still humming to herself as she gathered berries. Every once in a while she popped one into her mouth and smiled to herself.

"I think the scarf will be the hardest to separate her from," Sun commented. She settled down on a fallen tree and watched the baker girl plucking berries from a bush.

Wind scoffed. "Are you serious? The scarf is child's play. If anything, you should be worried about the boots." Stiff and tight-fitting - Wind was a little worried about getting them off herself.

Sun gave her an inquisitive look. "Really? The boots are the easiest." Her puzzling look shifted into her easy smile. "We're so different, Wind. That's what I appreciate about our friendship."

Friendship. Wind sighed and stepped forward. "Whatever. Watch and learn, Sunshine."

A sharp breeze suddenly kicked through the clearing, sending a ripple through the grass like a wave and sending groups of leaves dancing through the air. The skirt of May's dress billowed and then leapt upwards, revealing a flash of white underwear and eliciting a small "oh!" from the girl. She used one hand to push her skirt down and the other to cling to her scarf, which was streaming and fluttering wildly behind her.

Wind pushed harder and harder, 'til the breeze became a gale. Leaves and small branches were being stripped from the trees and flung into the sky. Twigs and dirt pelted May, who was hugging her jacket tightly around her and doing all she could to shield her face from flying debris. A pebble struck the side of her face and left a small red mark.

"Wind! You're supposed to strip her, not kill her," Sun called out warningly.

"I'll blow her to the next continent if I have to," Wind snapped. This wasn't working. She felt something like anger rising inside of her - frustration - and she let that feeling pour into the wind around her. Trees bent in the wind so far they were nearing horizontal, and May's dress shot above her head. Her underwear and her stomach were exposed as the wind caught her dress like a kite and dragged her several feet, eventually causing the girl to lose her balance and fall over. She kicked and flailed on the ground helplessly, trying to untangle herself from her dress and right herself.

Wind was caught up in the moment, carried along by the intense desire to prove herself the superior avatar. All that mattered was winning, proving her strength. She could drag this village girl through the brush, tear her clothes to shreds - sure, she'd be bloody and ruined, but the only thing that mattered was stripping her, right?

Sun, as an avatar, was naturally left untouched by the whirlwind around her. A point of calm in the storm. She was staring at Wind, one eyebrow raised slightly. Wind felt herself falter for a moment under Sun's gaze, and that was enough time for her senses to catch back up to her. She wanted to win quite badly, but not enough to actually hurt this girl.

The winds died down quickly. May lay on the ground panting, her underwear on display but otherwise no less modest than when the contest started. She sat up and smoothed down her skirt, then raised a hand to her disheveled hair. He lower lip quivered, as if she was about to cry. Wind felt the tiniest bit of guilt, but it was quickly swept away when May burst into laughter. "Wow, that was wild!"

Wind scowled. She hated being laughed at. Sun grinned at her and stood up to her feet. "Not a bad attempt. My turn now."

Wind then watched as Sun proceeded to do...nothing. The blonde avatar sat beside May on the grass for a few minutes as the girl caught her breath, then she walked along beside her as she began gathering blueberries again. May began humming to herself again, and Sun hummed along.

After a good half hour of this, Wind began to get irritated. "Look, are you going to go or what? If you just want to hang out in the forest with your new best friend cinnamon girl, do I really need to be here?"

Sun smiled. "Don't be a grump, Wind, and pay attention. I'm doing plenty."

Wind narrowed her eyes and looked around. The late summer sun was high overhead, warm light shining through the branches and settling on the clearing below. The morning had been chilly, but now the air was the perfect temperature. It was likely one of the last nice days before the autumn weather came to stay.

May popped another blueberry into her mouth and paused in the middle of her work. She'd warmed up quite a bit picking all of those berries, and it was much too warm for her jacket now. She shrugged it off, folded it up, and placed it atop of a nearby rock.

Wind let out an annoyed huff of air. Fine. That was just the jacket, though. Surely-

May sat down on the rock and unlaced her boots, then pulled them off of her feet one after the other, each one making a muffled popping noise as it came free. She slid her red socks off as well, balling them up and stuffing them into her boots. Her now bare toes slid into the warm grass and wiggled contentedly.

"I hope you get ringworm you...you peasant," Wind snapped, deeply displeased.

"No, you don't," Sun admonished. She trailed after May as she began filling the rest of her basket. The girl was now practically skipping through the clearing as she went, and she was fully singing her tune from earlier. Wordless but pretty vocalizations filled the space.

Wind allowed a bit of hope to poke through her gloomy mood. Sure, Sun had gotten her to take off quite a lot already, but so far it was all fairly innocuous. May was just a young girl picking blueberries barefoot in the woods. If she were to strip off entirely, with no reasonable pretense like bathing, it would cross a line into a territory that was naughty at best.

No, Wind reasoned, as May finished filling her basket. The girl would put back on her boots and jacket, then take the blueberries home like any good girl would. There's no way that Sun could-

Just as May seemed ready to do just that, Sun grabbed her by the sides of her face and kissed her. It wasn't a peck, either - the kiss was deep, long, and passionate. Wind's jaw slowly lowered in shock.

Even in a situation like this, a human wouldn't be able to perceive an avatar, so May didn't register the kiss on a conscious level. Even so, her eyes fluttered shut and her legs wobbled, threatening to give out underneath her.

Sun broke the kiss after a full minute. May leaned forward even as the avatar pulled away, wistfully reaching out with her mouth, as if she wasn't ready for the experience to be over yet. Sun walked over to where Wind was standing, dumbfounded.

Wind stared at Sun, opening and closing her mouth as half a dozen emotions fought to be verbalized. Eventually she settled on, "Sun, what the fuck?"

"What, that?" Sun say, smiling coyly. "Haven't you ever heard of being sunkissed before?"

May was swaying on the spot, eyes still shut. She slowly settled onto the grass, a dumb smile on her lips, and turned her face up towards the sunlight. Wind let out a small hiss.

"What did you do?" Wind demanded.

"I just gave her a taste," Sun said. She smiled another one of her infuriating smiles. "Now she'll want more."

May looked utterly relaxed as she lay flat on her back, arms spread wide. Very slowly, she unwound the scarf from around her neck and placed it to the side. Wind felt a knot of nervousness forming in her stomach.

May opened one eye, looking around furtively. Then she giggled a little to herself, and in one quick motion - as if she didn't want to give herself time to change her mind - she pulled her dress up and off. Now that she was only covered by her underclothes, the shape of her entire body was visible. She was shapely, neither skeletal nor overweight. Her form was that of someone who ate well but did physical work as well. The freckles covered her entire body, looking almost as if they had spread from her face down her arms and chest, and along the sides of her legs as well. She lay back in the grass and squirmed into a comfortable position.

Wind couldn't believe it. She knew Sun was smiling smugly and trying to catch her eye, but she couldn't look away from May. The village girl reached one hand behind her back and unclasped her bra, then slid the garment off of her arms, baring her breasts to the sky and the sun.

She stayed like that for the next few minutes, bathing in the warmth of the sun, popping a blueberry into her mouth every few moments. Wind was somewhat envious of how peaceful the girl looked; she herself was a bundle of frustration and impotency. She wanted to intervene, to blow May across the clearing and wipe the smug smirk off of Sun's face, but then she'd just be a child that threw the game across the room when she was losing-

May hooked a thumb into either side of her underwear, then slid them down and off, tossing them carelessly to the side. She spread her legs out, basking in her freedom and the sun both. Wind could see every detail, her light brown bush, the folds of her slightly parted lips...

She was completely bare, as naked as the day she was born. Sun let out a small cheer of victory as May rolled over to give her backside some sun as well. Wind let out a long, low hiss.

"See?" Sun said. She walked over and and sat down in the grass next to May, then began to massage the girl. She slowly kneaded the girl's shoulders and back, and placed small kisses between her shoulder blades. Wind felt herself getting angrier with each intimate kiss. "Strength is more than just pushing people around. It's-"

Wind unleashed two powerful gusts. The first was a frigid blast that made May sit up with a gasp. Her nipples quickly hardened and goosebumps formed across her exposed flesh. The second gust swept through the clearing, gathering all of May's belongings - the basket of berries, her scarf, every last scrap of clothing - into a swirling maelstrom before flinging them into the air, scattering them all far throughout the forest in every direction.

Wind then turned and stomped away without a word. It was petulant and petty, but she didn't care. She was furious that she'd lost - so furious that the depths of the emotion surprised even herself. She felt humiliated, weak and embarrassed. There were tears in her eyes. She wasn't supposed to cry - she was the frigid Wind, cold and indifferent. She emerged from the forest and stopped in the middle of the main road, crossing her arms. People and carts gave her a wider berth than usual, as if they could sense her anger.

Wind sensed Sun come up behind her, but didn't turn around. "That was mean."

"So?"

"What do you mean, so? She spent a long time picking those berries and you scattered them all to the wind in seconds! Along with every scrap of clothing that she has, I might add."

Wind still didn't turn around to face Sun. "I did her a favor. Now she can spend the rest of the day picking berries, bare ass naked and basking in the sunlight just like creation intended, since she loves it so much. And if she's upset you can stay with her and kiss away her tears, since she loves you so much too."

Sun was quiet for so long that Wind wondered if she'd left. She turned around and found the avatar still standing there, however, an unreadable expression on her face.

"You're...a lot sometimes, Wind," Sun said simply. Wind sighed deeply, not bothering to mask her disgust.

"What do you want from me?" Wind demanded. "An apology?"

"No," Sun said. She pointed a finger at Wind. "I want your forfeit. I'm going to make you corporeal until the next sunrise. Just you. Nothing else."

Before Wind had time to think about the emphasis Sun had used, she felt her relationship with the world shift. The deference that all of creation showed her as an avatar of nature evaporated. The aloofness from physical reality that was her privilege had been temporarily revoked. For the next several hours she was a member of humanity, a creature of flesh, blood, and lowness.

An autumn breeze swept past its erstwhile master, and though gentle it might as well have been a wave of ice water. Her insides began to chill as she realized what was wrong. What Sun had meant.

The breeze was touching parts of her that ought never to feel a breeze. The cool air washed over her breasts and stomach, caressed her lightly on her lips and her butt...it was touching every inch of her. Not only did she lack her otherworldly protections from the elements, she lacked any material protections as well.

She was naked. Completely naked, standing in the middle of a busy road, and every human there could see her.

[jimmythehand]

Really enjoyed that. With a few exceptions over the years, I haven't usually enjoy the fantasy enf stuff for the most part (though I very much enjoy the genre in 'regular', non-erotic literature) but this one really pulled me in for some reason. From a personal preference I would have liked just a little more description of both ladies once they were naked, but that's only a minor thing.

This definitely works if you leave the story here, but I'll also be happy to return if I see there's been another chapter. One of those that could work either way.

[SDS]

Wonderfully written!

Sun and Wind had some much character I loved the story.

SDS xx

[Executionus]

This was quite entertaining. A few years ago I actually had a story idea (which I never used) that would've been relatively similar to this (the invisible gods stripping mortals as part of a contest). It was amusing for me to see someone else do something so similar.